The Zennist

The highest of beasts

To get read into the program of Buddhism is really to first become intuitively cognizant of our Buddha or enlightened nature which is transcendent (lokuttara). We are going from the mode of "all this seems real" to "none of this is really real". This means we have had direct intuition of the waveless from which waves arise. The waveless is incomprehensible insofar as it cannot be grasped by our all too human intelligence.

 

From Nietzsche's book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, "Man is a rope stretched between the beast and the Übermensch—a rope over an abyss." With these words before us, the practice of Buddhism demands that we transcend the beast to reach the Buddha lineage (gotra ). Even now we are looking into the abyss about to fall where we shall become ropes again.

 

Nietzsche is expressing the precarious nature of humanity. We are the highest of beasts even though we are still caught between our bestial drives and the potential for transcendence. The abyss is saṃsāra.  And once again we complete another human journey that is going nowhere so long as we attach more to the beast within us than our potential for complete awakening (samyaksaṃbodhi).

A reified unreality

Our current system of perception and experience prevent us from accessing a more fundamental reality represented by the teachings of Buddhism. From a glance at religious literature it has always been about access to the transcedent, not just the worldly. This creates a kind of division but not a real division. Religion can be accessed directly through intuition but it cannot be converted into an empirical something.

Our current system of perception and experience wants congruity with sensory consciousness. It is privileged whereas the transcendent is not. This produces a marginalization or elimination of religion from human culture. In the end, religion is marginalized. What it is replaced with is a reified unreality. This could include a hyper-focus on consumerism, technology, or other forms of entertainment that provide superficial satisfaction but lacks any spiritual significance.